The director of the much touted movie Seediq Bale (賽德克巴萊) said on Thursday in Venice that he made the movie not just to promote Taiwan in the international community, but also to bring peace and harmony to all the ethnic groups in the country.
Wei Te-sheng (魏德聖) had in mind the contradictions and conflicts among Taiwan’s different ethnic groups when he met the press to talk about his epic movie at the Venice Film Festival.
He said he hoped that the movie, based on Taiwanese Aborigines’ fight against Japanese colonizers, would increase the world’s understanding of the nation, whose history and culture had been created by the 14 native tribes, as well as Han Chinese immigrants and recent new immigrants from neighboring countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines.
Photo: EPA
The interactions among these ethnic groups created a unique culture in Taiwan, he said, adding that he hoped the film would have a psychological healing effect on Taiwanese.
To dissipate hatred, “you’ve got to return to where it started,” Wei said.
He observed that people in Taiwan had not worked hard enough to learn about the culture of other ethnic groups, often resulting in one group’s “forceful intervention” in the lifestyle of another group or groups.
Every color in a rainbow exists on its own and next to other colors without one interfering with the others, but together they form a beautiful picture, he said.
The film is one of 22 that have been nominated for the Golden Lion award at this year’s Venice Film Festival — one of the world’s most prestigious cinematic competitions.
To accommodate the festival’s screening format, the four-and-a-half-hour film had to be cut to 135 minutes. Wei conceded that a large part of the emotional buildup in the film was sacrificed to allow room for other significant story lines.
After the film’s debut, Wei said he closely observed how the audiences reacted during screenings and kept asking himself whether their applause was because of true appreciation or simply politeness.
The Taiwanese production has been mired in controversy over how it has been labeled. The festival originally listed the film as originating from “China, Taiwan,” but after Taiwan’s representative to Italy protested, the listing was changed to “Chinese Taipei.”
When asked about the issue, Wei said he did not want the public to focus on political questions, but on the greatness of the power of art.
He said one of the most beautiful maps of the world is a satellite image of the Earth because it depicts the wholesome look of the planet. The ugliest map, he said, was one drawn by politicians with lines and blocks.
The power of art is like the satellite image of the Earth, which can remove all differences, Wei said.
“We as artists do not think within those lines. Whoever draws lines on the ground, I will ask them to remove them,” Wei added.
John Woo (吳宇森), the famed Hong Kong director and producer, who was present at the press conference, praised Wei for having produced an epic movie in which all Aboriginal actors had played their roles so sincerely that they made a touching movie.
Woo also commented that Wei’s work had demonstrated a humanitarian spirit, unlike Woo’s own heroes, who are a romantic reflection of his personality.
The film is scheduled to be released in Taiwan tomorrow under the title Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale (彩虹戰士:賽德克巴萊).
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its